Sacred (6 page)

The lump of meat in my stomach felt as if it was beginning to congeal, and it seemed that I could feel the saturated fat pumping through my veins.

“Are you taking Drama again this year?” Andy asked, probably to change the subject.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess.” I was signed up for Drama, seventh period, just as I had been the two years before … but the thought of getting onstage now made me uncomfortable.

“You should. You’re so good in all those little plays. So pretty.” And he leaned across the table to brush his hand across my cheek.

“Yeah. Thanks.” My eyes flitted over to a small crowd that was waiting over by the hostess stand. “We should go … give our table up,” I said.

“Sure.” Andy pulled his wallet out to pay and I reached into the small pocket on the front of my skirt for my cash. “No, I got it,” he said.

“No, you paid for the golf … let me at least pay for my food,” I argued.

Andy pursed his lips and shook his head. I knew from experience that he wasn’t budging on this one.

If there was any question about whether or not this was a date, how this meal was paid for would settle it.

I wasn’t sure if the discomfort in my belly was the burger or the pressure from the decision I was about to make. “All right,” I said smoothly. “But I’m leaving the tip.”

I could see from the look on Andy’s face that he wasn’t quite sure about this turn of events, but he didn’t argue.

I didn’t know exactly how much the bill was; I left Jill a five-dollar bill. Andy draped his arm across my shoulders and pushed the door open for me.

The air outside was chilly, and the sun had disappeared entirely from the sky while we were eating. Andy’s arm felt good, a comfortable weight pressing me firmly to the earth, grounding me.

We walked like that, together, through the town. The water lapped quietly at the shore; the boats in the harbor bobbed gently in their moorings. Above us, a heavy moon sailed across the sky.

My arm hesitated, then wound around Andy’s waist. It didn’t feel the same as it had before, but it still felt nice.

Andy’s face dropped to my hair and he breathed deeply. “Mmm,” he said. “I’m glad you came out.”

We walked farther and turned up my street. It was empty now, the windows in the front rooms glowing blue from televisions that ensnared the people inside.

Andy walked me to my house, then up the steps of my porch. My father had left the porch light on for me; moths flitted about it in mindless circles.

I knew Andy was going to kiss me now.

I turned and tipped my face up to his. “Thanks for dinner,” I said. “And the golfing.”

He laughed, low and sweet. “Yeah, you really loved that golf,” he said, and then his lips caught mine.

I didn’t give him a chance to hesitate; my arms wrapped around his neck and I pulled him roughly against me. I told
him with my mouth the things I couldn’t bring myself to say—that I was grateful for him, that I was glad he’d showed up at my house, that it was good that he’d waited for me, these long months of summer—that I was back, or trying to be, at least.

He pulled away first and he smiled at me, a wide, boyish grin, as if he’d just won a prize.

“Good night,” I said, and I slipped into the house, closing the door softly behind me.

FOUR

E
ven though Lily and her family got home three days before school started, I didn’t see her until the first day of class. They had all come down with some kind of flu—(“Ugh, airports are disgusting” was Lily’s explanation of how they got sick)—so even though I wanted nothing more than to spend the last days of summer chilling poolside at Lily’s house, I was stuck in my own sad little world.

My mom rarely appeared before eleven a.m. these days, and when she did make it out of her room, I wasn’t entirely convinced that she was fully conscious. I know my dad had refilled her prescription for sleeping pills, though his brow was creased with worry when he was talking to the pharmacist on the phone about it. I heard the phrase “developing a dependency,” but when he saw me listening, Daddy quickly finished the conversation and hung up.

There were no more guests; I figured my parents must be
dipping pretty heavily into their savings to cover the bills, and I considered trying to find an after-school job to help out. When I mentioned this to my dad, he shook his head firmly.

“Junior year is the most important,” he said. “This is the year colleges look at closely. You don’t want to be stuck on this island forever, do you?”

Absolutely not. I wanted to go somewhere far, far away for college. This hadn’t always been my plan; I had figured I’d follow in Ronny’s footsteps and go to UCLA, if I could get in. Maybe we would share an apartment. But with Ronny gone, I found myself yearning for something very different … snow, maybe, and big mountains.

So I resigned myself to just doing my best not to spend my parents’ money, which was one of the reasons I turned my mom down when she offered to take me to the mainland to do some back-to-school shopping.

The other reason was that I didn’t know if I could stand being alone with my mom for a whole day. Our sadness separately was hard enough.… Sometimes at night, I heard my mother crying, and I knew that she must have heard my sobs too. Together, our pain threatened to be overwhelming. I think my mom felt the same way. Even around the house we avoided standing too close to each other, and we never touched. Eye contact was minimal. It was as if we each were a highly reactive chemical that, if combined, would explode.

So I spent my last few days of summer much as I’d spent the rest of them—doing chores around the house and hanging out at the stable with Delilah.

Every time she and I rounded a bend on the trails, I found myself expecting to see Will Cohen again. But all I saw was more of the same—dry grass, rolling hills, trees.

I even revisited the trail where I’d met Will. I found the straw cowboy hat that had blown off my head that afternoon; dismounting Delilah, I picked it up from where it lay on the ground, blowing off the dust before putting it on.

But Will did not appear. I began to wonder if he had been a dream, or some sort of hallucination. Except his eyes—the shocking electric green of his eyes, staring at me with such intensity, such bewildered pain … I knew I didn’t have that good of an imagination.

The day after Labor Day, I awoke to a strange mixture of anticipation and dread. Life seemed to be insisting on moving ahead, with or without Ronny.

Time was a cruel bitch. Either move on with her or get steamrolled; I don’t think she cared much either way. My mom seemed to be taking door number two—steamrolled. Myself, I was ambivalent.

Still, I’d get to see Lily today. That was worth getting out of bed for.

There was no competing with Lily’s sense of fashion, especially considering that she’d just returned from two and a half months in Italy. So I dressed quickly, pulling on my favorite dress. It was violet, made of soft stretch cotton, with elbow-length sleeves and a pretty lettuce hem. It hung just above the knee. As an afterthought I pulled my jeans on, too. Andy loved to mock my penchant for wearing jeans
with dresses. He preferred bare legs, but I felt better in my jeans, less vulnerable.

My standard flip-flops completed the outfit. It occurred to me that I could turn my mirror around to see how I looked, maybe apply a layer of mascara, but my stomach started to feel like I was on a roller coaster, so I just shoved a few dollars into my pocket and yanked a brush through my hair. It was fairly compliant today; I twisted up the front and stabbed it with a couple of bobby pins, then let the rest alone, swinging on my back.

My mom was still in her bedroom—no surprise there—but in the kitchen, my father stood with a cup of coffee, gazing out the window over the sink. When I entered, it took him a moment to focus on me, and then he smiled.

“You look nice,” he said. “I like that color with your eyes.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

“Do you want me to cook you a couple of eggs?”

I shook my head. “I’ll just grab an apple,” I said, heading to the refrigerator.

“Just an apple? That’s not enough for breakfast … especially not on a school day.”

“Lily’s going to bring some of her mom’s famous muffins to school,” I lied. “You know, like to celebrate the beginning of the school year?”

He nodded. “That’ll be nice.” His gaze wandered out the window again. I started to leave, but his voice stopped me. “How are you holding up, honey?”

I rolled the apple I’d taken from one hand to the other, then back again. I didn’t turn to look at him. I didn’t want
to start crying, not now, right before school. “Okay,” I said. “I guess.”

“All right, baby. We love you. Have fun out there.”

I nodded, waiting a minute to see if he was going to say anything else. When he didn’t, I left our little kitchen. I couldn’t get down the steps and out the door fast enough to suit me. I couldn’t think about all that—not now.

“
Ciao, amica mia!
” called the voice I so loved.

I turned to see Lily—at least, it had to be Lily—standing on the sidewalk, clutching a leather satchel.

The outfit she was wearing did not belong in our school. Let me clarify that: the outfit did not belong in our
lives
. Lily was dressed from head to toe in some kind of buttery ivory leather suit. The jacket was nipped in at the waist and seemed to have at least a half-dozen zippers, along with … shoulder pads, something I’d seen in old movies from the late 1980s but had never worn in my life. There was a matching skirt, of course, several inches above the knee, and her feet were encased in the hottest leather booties I’ve ever seen. I didn’t think I could have walked the length of a classroom in those shoes, but it appeared that Lily planned to wear them all day.

Her black curls were bouncing saucily about her shoulders, and they seemed to shine even more than usual. Her mouth was painted a daring shade of red, and who knew what kind of eye makeup she’d applied; her eyes were hidden behind sleek gold aviator sunglasses.

I grinned. Only Lily.

She clapped her hands, tucking her satchel under her
arm, and ran toward me. Embracing me quickly, she kissed my right cheek, then my left, then my right, then my left again. I was starting to feel dizzy.

“I missed you too!” I said.

“Oh my god, Scarlett, that’s how you say hello in Italy. Can you believe it? I mean, you can totally go up to, like, even the hottest guy and just start kissing him! And he’ll kiss you back! I mean, Italy is so civilized! It cuts out all the crap, do you know what I mean, and it just gets right down to the good stuff.”

“Umm … I’m pretty sure you’re only supposed to kiss the people you already know,” I said. “I read that you just shake hands there the first time you meet. The kissing isn’t supposed to come until later.”

Lily shrugged. “Well,” she said, “
I
didn’t hear any complaints.”

She laced her arm through mine and started walking toward Avalon High. “It’s beyond beautiful there too, Scarlett. You would have loved it,” she moaned. “I’ve already convinced my parents that they have to send me back when I graduate. This time,
without
parental supervision. And
with
you, of course. You’ll go, right?”

“Sure,” I said. It was good to know I had plans for after I graduated in a year and nine months … even if I didn’t know how I was going to navigate successfully through today.

“You look awful, Scarlett,” Lily said frankly. “Just skin and bones.”

“Easy for you to say,” I scoffed. “Not all of us are as … blessed as you are.” I indicated Lily’s generous curves, tucked
neatly into the leather packaging of her suit. “You look great, by the way.”

“Of course I do. These Italian designers—they really know what they’re doing. No more buying American for me, no way, no how. It’s European everything from here on in.”

“Way to bolster the flagging economy,” I said, rolling my eyes. Lily was passionate, but usually only for a few weeks about any one thing before she moved on to the next obsession. I gave this Italian thing until homecoming, tops.

I took a halfhearted bite of my apple. It tasted too soft, mealy. As soon as I spied a trash can, I tossed it in.

The rest of the way to school, Lily filled me in on everything I’d missed in Italy.

According to her, the boys were way cuter than anyone here on the island—“Even Andy, no offense,” she said.

None taken.

The food was amazing. And people took hours eating their meals, and dinner didn’t even
begin
until after eight o’clock, and the beaches were incredible and—“you’ll never guess …,” she whispered, conspiratorial now, “I went to this beach, and, like, half of the women weren’t wearing their bikini tops … and now I don’t even
sort of
have a tan line. Look!”

She unzipped her jacket and peeled it apart to reveal her smooth, tan shoulder, unmarred by the customary band of white left by a bikini strap. I had to admit, I was impressed. Public nudity was not something I thought I’d ever be comfortable with. Lately I had a hard enough time being around people even fully clothed.